I’m not really in the mood to write anything today. I could force myself but it would take me forever and probably wouldn’t be of a high caliber. Not that this alternative is anyway, but at least it’s something!
A long time ago, just after I converted, I wrote a post about suffering and why I believed it existed/was necessary. I was thinking of cleaning it up and adding to it one day to post here insha’Allah. However, this is the original, unedited version. Keep in mind this was written two years ago, sometime before I became serious about writing (and thus the style is a bit immature). In other words, it’s not perfect. But I’m too lazy to fix it tonight.
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While watching the news one night, I began to wonder why there was suffering, misery, and illness in the world. So I took some time to think about it and came up with some reasons as to why I think our lives are not always filled with happiness and gladness. I’m sure there have been times when you’ve cried out to Allah to make things better, to end illness, misery, or suffering. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered what other Muslims might think. I originally only asked one person, but he got me started on the idea of asking every Muslim I knew. I’m very curious to know if people have similar ideas and thoughts on the topic or if they’re different from person to person. It’s a question certainly worth contemplating. Everyone in the world has experienced pain and suffering of some kind. So my question is, why do you think there is suffering, misery, and illness in the world? Why aren’t our lives brimming with happiness and contentment? Why does Allah let us suffer and not just make life easy for us?
This is what I think about why there is suffering in the world…
1. There are things in this world we want that maybe are not good for us or that might lead to some bad consequence. If we don’t get those things, we are not happy. There is a story of a man that asked the Prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi wassalam to pray for him so that he could be wealthy. The Prophet ignored him, but the man continued to ask until the Prophet salallahu alayhi wassalam did as he asked. The man became wealthy, but grew away from Islam over time because of the money. In our limited knowledge, we don’t know if something is truly good for us or bad for us -- only Allah knows for sure. Qur’an 2:216 -- “…but it may happen that you hate a thing that is good for you, and it may happen that you love a thing that is bad for you. God knows, you do not know.”
2. We cannot go through life always happy and content. Life is a test, and like any other test, requires work. Does an athlete become great without toil, hard work, and suffering? Can we expect to reach paradise without toil, hard work, and suffering? Our true colors become apparent under stress and suffering. We need suffering to show who are truly evil and who are truly good.
3. If we were always happy, would we always remember Allah? We turn to Allah in our times of misery and suffering because He is the only One who can make things better. But when times are good, people often forget about Him. They forget about Him until they need His help again when misery and suffering descend upon them. We obviously need to remember Allah at all times and not just when we want our suffering to stop.
4. Sometimes suffering is a result of rebellion against Allah. In a book I read, there was a story from the Qur’an about Allah destroying two tribes because they chose Satan over Him. What would have happened if these tribes had remained intact? It would have been harder for the servants of Allah to do good. Allah was providing a way for His servants to remain faithful and steadfast in their belief. But He had to destroy two tribes to do so.
5. Suffering and misery makes us better people. It makes us stronger as a whole. Rather than having everything we want handed to us on a silver platter, we learn how to deal with hard times. People who are rich usually have no idea what life is like beyond their piles of money. They do not know suffering and misery. There are so many famous scientists, doctors, writers, and others that grew up with a hard life. Yet they made the best out of life despite the misery and suffering they experienced.
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